Because religion evolved to thrive in us.

It’s like a parasite, and our mind is the host. It competes with other mind-parasites like other religions, or even scientific ideas. They compete for explanatory niches, for feeling relevant and important, and maybe most of all for attention.

Religions evolved traits which support their survival. Because all the other variants which didn’t have these beneficial traits went extinct.

Like religions who have the idea of being super-important, and that it’s necessary to spread your belief to others, are ‘somehow’ more spread out than religions who don’t convey that need.

This thread is a nice collection of traits and techniques which religions have collected to support their survival.

This perspective is based on what Dawkins called memetics. It’s funny that this idea is reciprocally just another mind-parasite, which attempted to replicate in this comment.

Right?

“I would have helped avoiding the apocalypse! But then some random guys sprayed paint on some things!”

Activists (try to) do that as well. But it’s much harder to get close to a rich person or their property, than it is to do something in public spaces. They, too, have to see what they can do with their limited resources.

Next, the media coverage is very unequal, as well as reader’s interest. You are much more likely to click on an article covering a potentially outrageous action, than you are to read about something which does not bother anyone. Although you can rest assured, these things are tried and done frequently.

So naturally, to the uninvolved reader, it may seem as if activists don’t do anything but stupid stunts. And naturally, each outsider seems to think they have a much better grasp of strategy and what actions might make sense than the people who are actually involved in these things.

Of course, a particular action can still be silly. I just want to draw attention to biases at play, in general.

And if you really have a much better idea how to do something about the climate crisis, then go ahead and shine as an example. Not only would you author an actually impactful action (which in itself should be reason enough), you could also show all these rookie activists how to get things done. If your example is convincing, you should see less media coverage about inferior actions.

Dumm di dumm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles

Der Markt für Verbrenner verschwindet in den nächsten 10 bis 20 Jahren. Zeigt mal wieder deren Wirtschaftskompetenz.

What do you mean? Of course they do. It’s not a contradiction, because they are adversaries.

Gotta know your whales.

making the shops pay more to use the payment service, so that the shops then increase the prices, so that you pay the same as before

Just nitpicking because I enjoy these thoughts:

When the shop increases prices, it has to do it for all the customers, including the ones without credit card. So a part of the cost is offloaded to other types of customers. While credit card customers should see a slight increase in price, it should not be as much as they saved previously. So still a net win for them, at the cost of others.

As others pointed out, the real scheme is probably entirely different.

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Japan’s coal imports are overwhelmingly local – AUS and Indonesia.

That’s roughly as local as France or GB to US east cost, similar distance and similar other differences. IMHO both connections aren’t even regional anymore. But yeah, it’s fairly short what coal import routes concerns.

Würde ich auch vermuten. Ihre bisherigen Forderungen waren es aber nicht, mit großem Abstand. Also mal schauen.

While you guys kind of have a point, the specific argument you put forward is rather weak. Transportation accounts for an almost negligible part of the overall emissions of a product. Bulk freight cargo is super efficient. If you want to moan about transportation emissions, look at single people sitting in tons of steel making short trips.

The point you still have is that emissions are caused in the process of satisfying a demand. Consumers do have a partial responsibility. However I would object in that the problem cannot be solved from the consumer’s position. It is a market failure. Markets have no incentive to internalize their externalities, that has to come from a different place; e.g. politics. Carbon pricing is an interesting mechanic, since it utilizes that same argument for good.

That’s true. A lot more could be said about this, on various levels in various directions. Ultimately I don’t think this systemic crisis can be solved on a consumer level. The attempt leads to the status quo; different subcultures with some people paying extra to calm their consciousness, while most don’t care or cannot afford. I’m afraid if we try to work with individual sacrifice against economic incentives, the latter will win.

It’s also true that some companies use their economic power as a political lever, to influence legislation in their favor. Or as a societal lever, to sway public opinion in their favor. I guess this meme here tries to address that. I honor the motive. Just the chosen vehicle is broken. With mountains of evidence supporting the cause, however, there are plenty of other, perfectly fine vehicles available.

This meme is so wrong it is deliberate misinformation. The Guardian made an article which is probably this meme’s source. It even linked to the original source, the Carbon Majors Report. But blatantly misquoted the CMR. For example, CMR says something like “100 fossil fuel producers responsible for 71% of industrial GHG emissions”, but The Guardian (and meme posters) omit the italic bits.

What do they mean with producers? Not companies like Apple or Heinz, but simply organizations which produce fossil fuels. Duh. Shell, BP, but also entities like China’s coal sector (which they count as one producer, although it consists of many entities). CMR also states 3rd type emissions are included. Which means emissions caused by “using” their “products”, e.g. you burning gasoline in your car.

So yes, the downvoted guy saying “Consumer emissions and corporate emissions are the same emissions” is pretty spot on in this case, albeit most likely by accident. Rejected not for being wrong, but for not fitting into a narrative, which I call the wrong reasons. Please check your sources before posting. We live in a post-factual world where only narratives count and truth is just another feeling, because of “journalism” and reposts like this. Which is the infuriating part in this particular case. I guess you want to spread awareness about the climate crisis, which is good, but you cannot do so by propagandizing science and spreading lies.

All that from the top of my head. Both the ominous TG article and the fairly short report are easy to find. In just a couple of minutes you can check and confirm how criminally misquoted it was.

Eventually, things settle at almost perfect ratios. Everything between creates some kind of friction.

What does it even mean to bruteforce creating art? Trying all the possible prompts to some image model?

Doesn’t have to be that random, but can be. Here, I wrote: “throw loads of computation power, gazillions of try & error, petabytes of data including human opinions”.

The approach people take to learning or applying a skill like painting is not bruteforcing, there is actual structure and method to it.

Ok, but isn’t that rather an argument that it can eventually be mastered by a machine? They excel at applying structure and method, with far more accuracy (or the precise amount of desired randomness) and speed than we can.

The idea of brute forcing art comes down to philosophical questions. Do we have some immaterial genie in us, which cannot be seen and described by science, which cannot be recreated by engineers? Engeniers, lol. Is art something which depends on who created it, or does it depend on who views it?

Either way what I meant is that it is thinkable that more computation power and better algorithms bring machines closer to being art creators, although some humans surely will reject that solely based on them being machines. Time will tell.

That depends on things we don’t know yet. If it can be brute forced (throw loads of computation power, gazillions of try & error, petabytes of data including human opinions), then yes, “lots of work” can be an equivalent.

If it does not, we have a mystery to solve. Where does this magic come from? It cannot be broken down into data and algorithms, but still emerges in the material world? How? And what is it, if not dependent on knowledge stored in matter?

On the other hand, how do humans come up with good, meaningful art? Talent Practice. Isn’t that just another equivalent of “lots of work”? This magic depends on many learned data points and acquired algorithms, executed by human brains.

There also is survivor bias. Millions of people practice art, but only a tiny fraction is recognized as artists (if you ask the magazines and wallets). Would we apply the same measure to computer generated art, or would we expect them to shine in every instance?

As “good, meaningful art” still lacks a good, meaningful definition, I can see humans moving the goalpost as technology progresses, so that it always remains a human domain. We just like to feel special and have a hard time accepting humiliations like being pushed out of the center of the solar system, or placed on one random planet among billion others, or being just one of many animal species.

Or maybe we are unique in this case. We’ll probably be wiser in a few decades.

This ambiguity is what I had in mind when I read “let me be clear”. Though now I get it.

Teilweise juhu, prinzipiell jedenfalls. Praktisch bleibt mir völlig unklar, wo zu welchen Konditionen denn nun Bubatz zu haben ist. Oder ob damit gewartet werden muss, bis die heute gesäten Pflanzen geerntet wurden. Es finden sich haufenweise Informationen dazu, wie kompliziert alles ist, aber diese eine entscheidende praktische Frage habe ich noch nirgendwo beantwortet gefunden.

Falls da jemand mehr weiß, für Hamburg oder auch anderswo, das wär toll.

In Germany, whenever the discussion about wether to deliver a specific weapon system or not extends to a “new” weapon system, this usually is an argument against. Hurr durr, it could be used to poke too deep into Russian-held territory, or beware, even strike native Russian soil. Russia might not like that and pull Germany into the war or throw a nuke or whatnot.

The day this country’s tensions between conservatism and liberalism die is the day the USA ceases to exist. That tension is at the core of our republic, literally since its founding, and it’s what makes us great, unlike any other nation on Earth.

That sounds as if this tension was somehow unique to the united states. It’s not, it’s everywhere. Even worse, the US have less of a political spectrum than most other nations, just shy of dictatorships.